Development of Leading Centres for mud crab culture in Indonesia and Vietnam

• Research Institute for Aquaculture No. 3, Vietnam
• Research Station for Coastal Fisheries, Indonesia

Mud crabs are ideal for aquaculture and they are an environmentally friendly alternative to clearing mangroves for shrimp aquaculture. An earlier ACIAR project (FIS/1992/017) made much progress in resolving the problems of rearing technology, leading to significant increases in survival rates of larvae up to crab stage. The findings led to the semi-commercial establishment of production facilities in the Philippines, and the stage was set for the flow-on of benefits to other countries. Indonesia and Vietnam were identified as countries that would derive substantial benefit from the extension of the technologies, and this project developed leading centres for crab aquaculture at key institutions in both countries. Activities included capacity building through training and extension, infrastructure development at the centres, improvement to commercial hatchery technology and translation of the practical handbook from the earlier project into Indonesian and Vietnamese.

The main objective of this small project was to develop 'Lead Centres for Crab Aquaculture' at key institutions undertaking nationally funded mud crab research programs in Vietnam and Indonesia.

A series of eight activities was undertaken in support of the Lead Centres. These activities fell into three components: (1) establishment of additional infrastructure for training and larval rearing trials; (2) pilot extension workshops with institutional staff; and (3) locally organised workshops for hatchery operators. The first two components involved exchanges of staff between the Bribie Island Aquaculture Research Centre (BIARC) and the partner institutions to develop the technical capacity, training manual and procedures to be used for the local extension program (Component 3).

Project achievements in Vietnam were impressive; in Indonesia hatchery technology was refined and staff trained but there was little or no technology transfer. The Indonesian component of the project suffered from problems associated with the change of project leader and security-related travel restrictions.
Given that this was a small project, the project performance in Vietnam alone provided excellent value for money. In Vietnam both the government and other donors provided substantial support. In Indonesia, the inputs were more modest but adequate and commensurate with research progress achieved.

The existence of appropriate technology and potential for commercial mud crab hatcheries was widely promoted to aquaculture industry operators over broad regions within the partner countries. Training workshops for Provincial Fisheries staff and farmers held at RIA3 (Vietnam) and GRIM (Indonesia) were successful in demonstrating all aspects of the hatchery process for mud crabs. Feedback from attendees was very positive and in the case of Vietnam the workshop received national media attention.

The project, through the extension activities, stimulated the commercial application of mud crab hatchery technology. In Vietnam the partner agency RIA3 became recognised nationally as the lead centre for crab hatchery technology and significant Ministry funding led to the commissioning of commercial crab hatcheries in Nhe Ahn and Hai Phong provinces. In Indonesia local growout farmers evaluated seed produced by the GRIM hatchery.

ACIAR developed a linked project (FIS/2000/065) to develop formulated feeds for crab growout: this will involve RIA3 and the Vietnamese project leader is helping consolidate and enhance the progress achieved to date. In Indonesia the research partner GRIM is capable of producing crab seed but will require further support to consolidate the technology to the point where it can be transferred to commercial operators. Indonesia is not directly involved in the followup project but every effort will be made to capture spillover benefits from this work and ensure that relevant opportunities for technology transfer particularly with Vietnam are taken.

The results of this project were reported at an ACIAR funded workshop 'Mudcrab aquaculture in Australia and SE Asia' held in Brisbane in April 2003 and recorded in ACIAR Working Paper No. 54.